When I was younger, a group of friends in Peachtree City created the Endowment Committee for Cultural Arts in Fayette County and started the first Valentine Ball.

Selling the tickets was assumed to be a monumental task, so my friends, including my mom, started way ahead. There were no corporate sponsors. No one thought of that.

In addition, most people did not own a tuxedo. The “Endowment Committee” found a mail order company that sold “affordable” tuxedos, and that year a lot of men got tuxedos for Christmas, including my dad and me.

These women ultimately sold 220 tickets the first year, and the ball was deemed a great success. It generated a handsome profit, and since there were no “cultural arts” back then, the money was given to the library to buy cultural arts books.

The next year, the group of volunteers learned one of its toughest lessons ever. Since the ball had been so successful, the committee just assumed that people would rush out and buy ball tickets again. Not much thought was given to marketing that year. No one told the new people how wonderful the ball was going to be.

About two weeks before the ball, only 40 tickets had been sold. The board called an emergency meeting. When told of the grim situation, two of the board members, not wanting to be part of a failure, resigned. The rest of the group worked around the clock to rescue the ball and make it a success, but the group never forgot the difficult lesson they had learned.

You have to continue to sell even a good product if you wish it to be successful. You must always be looking for new customers and insuring that quality is present.

This is a lesson I will bring to the County Commission. If we want to be attracting new and desirable business and industry that will lower our tax base, we must fill our papers with “ribbon cuttings,” not litigation.

If we want Fayette County to be the most desirable county in Georgia, we must insure that our leaders return the very most in service and excellence for our tax dollar. We must settle our fights and put our best face forward.

This is a new day for Fayette County and we need new leadership. Learning to be positive and sell our county every day is one “law of life” that will take its place on the commission when I am elected.

Sam Chapman, Fayetteville
Candidate for Post 4, County Commission
Fayetteville, Ga.